


Ladder

by Eremji (handsfullofdust)



Series: Snakes & Ladders [1]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alien Biology, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexuality, Blow Jobs, First Time, Illness-Related Weight Loss, Injury Recovery, M/M, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness, Star Trek: AOS, Survivor Guilt, Vulcan Mind Melds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 09:52:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13715187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handsfullofdust/pseuds/Eremji
Summary: A Starfleet captain should know he can't cheat death, just like a Vulcan should know that embracing emotion is the path to destruction. Spock doesn't believe in miracles, but the rules never seem to apply to Jim Kirk.A story about breaking all the rules, breaking down, and rebuilding.





	Ladder

**Author's Note:**

> This fic diverges before Beyond, and picks up right as Jim is waking up from the hospital in ST:ID. I feel like the end of that movie left so much unaddressed. This gently tackles some survivor's guilt and Jim's physical condition after he wakes up, but the primary focus is emotional catharsis between the two lads.
> 
> My love to everyone who put up with me during the process of this, provided feedback, and just generally supported my ridiculous flurry of writing. [MelodyzofzRain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelodyzofzRain) is a queen among the people for immediately jumping on this to help edit.
> 
> I try to conscientiously tag, but if you feel I've left anything out ( **or at any point during reading feel like something should be warned for** ), always feel free to ask for a tag to be added!
> 
> EDIT: A typo fix. Also, I don't have anon commenting enabled here, but [I am also @eremji on Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/eremji).

* * *

 

Nyota wears her dark hair loose. The dark length of it falls artfully, spilling across her shoulders in gentle curls. Her uniform is impeccably pressed, unlike Spock’s own, rumpled from days of wear. Her skin smells like Andorian spice bread, no doubt from her mother’s kitchen, warm and comfortingly rich.  
  
It is a welcome change from the chill antiseptic sterility of Starfleet Medical. It is also the first time he has seen her in three days; she removed her belongings from his temporary quarters and retreated to the solace of her family.  
  
If her expression were not so tender, she would look the very picture of a Vulcan woman, straight-backed and resolute enough to master any challenge. She stands like a rock in the tide, visitors and hospital staff flowing around her as if there were no question of her right to occupy the space.  
  
Spock finds it difficult to meet her eyes. A swell of affection rises in his torso, but it is swiftly overtaken by a complicated admixture of grief and guilt. Though Spock is learning to better navigate the complicated emotional heirlooms of his mixed parentage, shame preys on his mind, not an emotion he has mastered.  
  
She has been speaking, and he mentally scrambles to catch up with her line of dialogue. Reality feels washed out, muted. He has not slept for fifteen point eight days.  
  
“Spock,” she says, and Spock rallies the mental fortitude to meet her gaze. “Spock, I need to know you’ll be okay if I leave now.”  
  
“Leave?” he asks, finding he is apprehensive of her clarification. His mind is raw and open, hollowed out like an old gourd and left to wither with only a few rattling scraps of fear.  
  
Fear of himself. Fear of losing control. Fear he might still lose Jim. He feels, for once in many years, as two separate halves torn from a whole; he is yoked to both, hauling a burden he has not discerned how to bear.  
  
“I’m taking a temporary assignment on the _Aurora_. I’ll come back to the _Enterprise_ , when she’s ready,” Nyota says. _When I am ready_ , Spock infers.  
  
There is much more unspoken behind her words that he cannot parse. Nothing they have said can be taken back, and the truth has left what lies between them mangled and broken. There is little to be said on her part; he does not begrudge her resentment at the unwanted knowledge that, at each crossroad, Spock will always choose the permutation with Jim Kirk.  
  
“Spock?” she repeats. “You need to sleep.”  
  
Nyota sighs and touches Spock’s face. He feels an echo of emotion, a complicated tangle, and a terrifying resignation. Spock’s mind sinks swiftly against Nyota’s, seeking the benediction and order of her thoughts. He allows himself just a brush of understanding, fearful of overwhelming her with the knife sharp telepathic bleedthrough of his own pain, but touching her mind is more like closing his hand around a live wire than the ordered solicitude he expects.  
  
She has been his anchor at the cost of herself, a surrogate for his inability to attain emotional balance, and though he sees the inequity of it all, he finds himself unmoored without her.  
  
Chagrined, he begins, “Nyota --”  
  
“ _Don’t_ ,” she says, so firmly and sharply that he abates immediately, chastened. It is her mother’s tone, commanding respect. “I’ve thought about this a lot, Spock. This isn’t a surprise for either of us at this point -- and I’m not angry.” It's a lie, but also a kindness.  
  
He would like to protest, but he loses his objections in the warm caress of her fingertips, familiar and friendly, across his meld points. Spock sees the truth of her words reflected in the jewel-toned orchards of her mind. He severs their connection, retreating behind his telepathic shields and touches the back of her hand, conciliatory.  
  
Exhausted beyond normal Vulcan endurance by the ordeal of the last two weeks, a tremor wracks him, his body betraying the tumultuous state of his mind. There is no Vulcan mind healer here to council him, and he selfishly thought Nyota might brace him without thinking of the cost to both of them.  
  
Spock assembles his response. No matter his earnestness, it feels inadequate to the task. Nyota deserves his thoughtfulness, though he is unable to offer it to her.  
  
“Nyota, my regard for you has always been immense,” he says, and knows that Nyota understands he means that he loves her. Spock has begun to glean that he does not even know the language of this emotion, befuddled by all its lexical complexity, and that it is unfair to offer her his amateurish first effort when she speaks it like her native tongue.  
  
“Spock, you’re Vulcan,” she says. “You know that love can’t hold two people together indefinitely.”  
  
“I am also Human, Nyota,” Spock says, reassembling himself. He holds her by the wrist and lays a kiss on the palm of her hand. She understands him, and the value of that is immeasurably high. “To lose that which means much is difficult, as necessary as it may be, even for a Vulcan.”  
  
“Oh, Spock,” Nyota says, and leans her head against his, her slim hands are steady, her will unshakable. Through his fingertips, he can taste the telepathic impressions of her sorrow, her relief, her love. “We both know now that there’s something you’re afraid of losing more than me.”  
  
The doorway to Jim’s hospital room slides open and Dr. McCoy appears. He looks as though the world has been lifted from his tired shoulders. Hope, dangerous and unchecked, brings Spock to his feet, bobbing unsteadily like a buoy on a rough ocean. In two weeks, he has had no other solace.  
  
Nyota steps back from Spock, expression unreadable. Spock does not meet McCoy’s eyes, as McCoy looks between them, uncomfortably perceptive. McCoy does not offer to come back at another time; Jim is too important to all of them.  
  
“Typical Jim, waking up at an inconvenient time,” McCoy says, looking between them warily.  
  
“I have to go prepare my testimony for the Starfleet tribunal. They want to take my statement before I leave,” Nyota says. She musters a smile and touches the crown of Spock’s head. Three steps away, she pauses and says over her shoulder, “ _Nam-tor elik_ , Spock.”  
  
_Be free._ Spock is uncertain he is able.  
  
“What’d she say?” McCoy asks, as Spock stands and faces him.  
  
“A Vulcan blessing,” Spock says. He pauses, inclining his head, because for all his abrasiveness, McCoy has always shown Spock kindness. “It is also the first line of a love poem recounting the tribulations of a pre-Awakening clan warrior performing _fal-tor-pan_ to reunite with his bondmate.”  
  
McCoy looks at him sidelong, one eyebrow raised. “Didn’t know Vulcans blessed anything.” He does not say, _I didn’t know Vulcans could love someone._

 

* * *

  

It doesn’t take long before Bones hustles Spock right back out of the room, claiming doctor-patient confidentiality. Spock looks fine at first glance, but the longer he stands around, the more he looks to Jim like he’s about to fall over.  
  
Jim almost protests -- he’d rather have Spock there, for better or for worse -- but all his bravado goes out the window when he starts heaving up the small cup of water he managed. He felt relatively well upon waking, a touch dizzy, thirsty, but as soon as he makes the effort to sit up he feels like he’s going to come apart at the seams.  
  
Bones gets an antiemetic in him, and something that makes the room stop spinning, but his insides still feel like they’re sloshing around. He runs his teeth over his gums, tasting blood.  
  
“Are you sure I’m back in one piece?” Jim says, breathing through his nose like it’s his first go in the Academy’s zero-g simulator. He hasn’t been this winded since he came down with a strain of Denobulan influenza.  
  
“As close to one piece as extensive genetic manipulation can get you,” Bones says. Jim doesn't even have it in him to protest the next hypo.  
  
“I feel like the _Enterprise_ landed on me,” Jim says.  
  
“Well, it didn't, thanks to you.” Bones fiddles with a few more notes. “There shouldn't be any long-term effects, but I’m going to keep monitoring you. Records from the Eugenics Wars are a little shaky, at best.”  
  
“I can’t imagine you got Khan’s consent for your experiment,” Jim says, looking steadily at the back of Bones’ head. They’ve been friends for a very long time, and Jim knows Bones will bend the rules if he thinks it’s the right thing to do. Jim just wishes it were for a better cause.  
  
The set of Bones’ shoulders is more than enough to give him his answer. “Listen, Jim --”  
  
“Don’t ‘ _listen Jim_ ’ me,” Jim croaks. “I made a lot of mistakes, but I don’t want you risking your career and an ethical review --”  
  
“They won’t,” Bones says, voice low. “There’s nothing left to review. We modified the records. Scotty pulled the data banks and Spock scrubbed the feeds.”  
  
“Bullshit,” Jim says. “You can’t just break the rules whenever you feel like it. They could revoke your license and kick you out of Starfleet.”  
  
“Damn you, telling us we can’t,” Bones says, livid. His face purples slightly, jaw flexing where he clenches it. “You broke _every rule_. You died saving us all, you crazy bastard, the least we could do is try to save _you_.”  
  
“I -- didn’t think it’d have to come to this,” Jim says. He watches the fury drain out of Bones, who subsides, eyes averted, tense.  
  
“I thought you didn’t believe in no-win scenarios,” Bones says, more diplomatically, and Jim doesn’t really have an answer for that.  
  
Jim’s had his doubts, but he can’t just carry on believing the rules apply to everyone but him. Pike had been adamant about that. If Jim Kirk could break the rules, the rest of his crew was only following his example.  
  
He just isn’t so certain that Starfleet will find a copacetic explanation for why his senior staff is complicit in premeditated data destruction and banned genetic experimentation. Pike could have pitched it as using their resources for the greater good, but Jim Kirk was no Christopher Pike, and he’s certain that whatever tribunal Starfleet was assembling would skewer both him and his crew.  
  
“So, what did I miss while I was down?” Jim asks, cautiously.  
  
“Your communications officer just left everyone’s favorite Vulcan,” Bones says, brow furrowed. He checks the medical tricorder readouts on his PADD like he isn’t having an extremely personal conversation about two of Jim’s subordinates.  
  
“Really,” Jim says, levelly, unsure of what Bones expects him to say.  
  
“Just left him on your doorstep,” Bones says, mouth all knotted up, like he’s swallowed a lemon. It isn’t much different than his usual disapproving glower, but Jim knows Bones. He’s got a prickly spot for exes, and as much as Bones will never admit it, Spock is one of his. “I see you’re not exactly clutching your pearls.”  
  
“They’ve had fights before,” Jim says. “I didn’t know you were such a rotten old gossip.”  
  
Bones puts his PADD down, mouth a hard, flat line. “She took a seven-month assignment on the _Aurora_ , Jim.”  
  
For a moment, all Jim can do is breathe steadily, attempting to process the information. In through his nose, out through his mouth. His stomach tilts again, and he focuses on Bones’ face.  
  
“What do you want me to do about it?” Jim says, finally, gesturing at himself. “I’m newly revivified and still medically incompetent for command. I can’t exactly issue a stop on her temporary transfer.”  
  
“I can’t let you out of here without a competent guardian. You’re not done with your radiation treatment, and some of it ain’t exactly being done on the books,” Bones says.  
  
Jim scowls back at him. “Make your point.”  
  
Bones rolls his eyes. It’s not hard for Jim to imagine he’d throw his arms up in the air, exasperated, if he weren’t holding expensive medical equipment and a trained professional. His bedside manner always did leave something to be desired. “Take him with you, it’ll do you both some good. And get him out of _my_ hair.”  
  
He doesn’t think Bones understands how hard he’s tried to get Spock to just -- connect. Jim squeezes his eyes shut briefly, trying to push out all the bizarrely insistent impressions of his meld with Spock’s elder counterpart. He’s wanted to ask for that connection again, wanted to reach for it, wanted to not be alone in his own head and have someone _understand_ , but it feels transgressive to request it from someone who barely reciprocated his friendship.  
  
“I don’t even think he’d come with me,” Jim mumbles sullenly, shoulders hunched.  
  
“Don’t give me that,” Bones says, rounding on him. “He sat outside your room like a kicked puppy the whole time you were out, heart right out in his hands. I can’t imagine how awful it must have been for him to sit through everybody and their cousin knowing he cares so much.”  
  
“Don’t be cruel,” Jim bristles.  
  
“You wouldn’t think it’s cruel if you just saw him, Jim,” Bones says. He puts his PADD and tricorder down. Jim folds his legs under him and Bones sits; it was always a little strange, to see Bones shuck off that outer skin, that medical detachment. He looks tired, suddenly, and much older than Jim remembers, even though it’s only been a few weeks.  
  
“If you think it’d be best,” Jim says, suddenly very willing to be agreeable. They’ve all been through something terrible, and they’ll need to get through it together. Jim knows, from growing up with all that pain, that some things take time to settle, even if you’re not the one that’s been hurt.  
  
All at once, Jim feels something inside him give way, something impending, and he sways, struggling to keep upright even though he’s only sitting. Bones has been there through all of it, keeping Jim safe, they all have. It was the least that Jim could do to keep his crew safe.  
  
The _Enterprise_ was his ship, but without the crew, without his _friends_ , she was just another empty duranium shell. Space debris.  
  
Bones’ warm hand is solid on the back of his neck, and he’s pulled into a powerful embrace. Bones has always been rock solid for Jim, from that first day when Jim launched himself toward captaincy with nothing left to lose; as long and as loud as Bones complains, he never fails to come through.  
  
“Come on, now, everything’s gonna be fine,” Bones says, soothing. Jim has heard him talk like that to Joanna, low and warm, loving. “We’ll get you fixed up, and we’ll all be back up in the air before long, haring off to some other ridiculous planet so you can damn near get yourself killed again.”  
  
“Yeah, sure,” Jim says. He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, rubbing away the prickle of tears.  
  
“Come on, I'll get you the reports to look over,” Bones says. If his voice is a little hoarse and his eyes a little watery, Jim isn't going to bring it up. “Spock is gonna have to sign off on the final version, but I just know you’ll get a look whether I med lock you or not.”

 

* * *

 

 

Jim Kirk’s San Francisco apartment is cleaner than expected, the open-air floor plan and high ceilings giving the impression of spaciousness. Spock sets his travel duffel by a low table near the entrance and stands in silence while the computer system boots up living functions which have been mostly dormant for the better part of a year and a half.  
  
The floor-to-ceiling windows on the outer wall look out over the rain-tossed bay. San Francisco’s nightlife is largely unscathed by the wreckage of the USS _Vengeance_ , and Jim’s apartment affords a superior view of the riot of neon lights that set apart the entertainment district. Spock drifts towards the view as the computer lowers the privacy tint to twenty percent. It has always struck Spock how remarkably resilient to disruption and tragedy his mother’s species is.  
  
To the west, Spock can see the faint lights of distant salvage rigs, flitting in and out of the wreckage as they work through the night to erase the carnage. They wing out over the bay to avoid civilian air traffic and hover low over the choppy ocean waters, lights winking like fireflies.  
  
Spock turns, putting the windows at his back, and surveys the apartment, taking inventory: an unmade bed; the spotless full kitchen; a tiled bathing area separated from the main living area by a walk-in closet; a low, crimson couch built for lounging and covered by half-packed luggage. Spock weighs his options, and then sits, stiff-backed, at the foot of the bed.  
  
The door slides open, and Jim leans heavily on the frame. Spock’s first impulse is to rise and assist Jim, but Jim insisted on independence as a condition of his care. Jim has a small parcel tucked under his arm, and looks soft, rumpled, and too thin. Spock’s hands tremble in his lap; he is unable to fully control the jolt of lingering despair he experiences when he looks at Jim.  
  
“Hey,” Jim says. His smile is crooked, expression open and tired. “Got the mail.” He hefts his parcel, cheerful by all appearances, but Spock reads signs of strain in his voice.  
  
Spock does not immediately answer, as Jim seems to require no input. Instead, Jim shuffles into the kitchen and places the parcel on the counter, then surveys the apartment. Jim’s mouth turns down into a frown when he spots the luggage strewn between couch and bed.  
  
He surveys the disarray, then says, “Uh. I can clear the couch off -- unless you don’t mind sharing the bed tonight?” Jim scratches his chin, entirely unselfconscious. “It'll be just like those tents on Delta Ceti, except with real blankets and no bugs.”  
  
“Negative,” Spock says, voice perfectly steady, but a hot lance of fear and a subtler, more poisonous current of desperation run through him. “The bed is an acceptable arrangement.”  
  
He presses the tip of his tongue to the back of his teeth, hungry for something he does not fully understand, hungry for this burgeoning need to be close to Jim, to sit near him, to look at him, to touch his face and make sure Jim is still breathing.  
  
It is a cavernous sensation, hollowing him out with grief and terror, and he might understand it better if it were any desire he had ever wrestled with before. The bleak, utter psychic isolation he experienced after the loss of his mother and planet had been keener, but not so suffocating. Spock has no goal or task to distract him here, no foe to defeat, only Jim favoring every movement and poorly disguised grimaces of pain.  
  
Dr. McCoy stipulated Jim’s medical release on grounds that he be accompanied by a responsible party. Spock volunteered immediately.  
  
Jim, for his part, does not seem perturbed by Spock’s sudden inability to control his emotiveness. The corners of Jim's eyes have laugh lines; Spock notes it, because Jim is smiling at him unabashedly, and it sets Spock’s nerves sparking.  
  
Limping closer, Jim supports himself with the back of the couch. Jim’s recovery, miraculous even when examined from a purely scientific standpoint, has taken a toll on his physical fitness. “This isn't easy for you. Bones told me about you and Nyota.”  
  
Spock has gained proficiency in conversational inference and is familiar enough with Jim that Spock can discern his expression is concerned, even while Jim attempts to look casual. He is also certain Dr. McCoy informed Jim that Spock remained awake for the duration of Jim’s treatment, severely pressing the limits of Vulcan physiology. Meditation has been impossible, and Spock remained awake far past the point of any logical limit.  
  
Nyota understands, now, and seeks her happiness elsewhere. The truth is a cleansing fire, hotter than Vulcan summertime, but Spock can reassemble a clear memory of her warm hand on his forehead after the meld, of the incalculable gentleness of her love, and the benediction of her forgiveness. It seems pale beside the intensity of his own fury, but the songbirds that sheltered in the temple eaves of Mount Seleya were no less hardy for their sweetness. Spock begins to understand the power in surrender.  
  
“I am rapidly experiencing a series of intense emotional responses and I am unable to modulate them without difficulty,” Spock admits, feeling shame, but Jim has always rendered him transparent.  
  
“Hey, it's fine,” Jim says. His expression softens from concern to open tenderness, and Spock cannot detect even a scrap of reproach. Spock has rarely seen affection worn so openly, and he wonders how gravely he has underestimated the pull of honest friendship. “You can stay here until things are sorted out. It’ll be good to have some help, as much as I hate to admit Bones is right.”  
  
Spock inclines his head. “Your proposition is sound. Perhaps a recovery period would be beneficial to us both.”  
  
In truth, Spock is uncertain that he is capable of exposure to Starfleet’s questioning without an inappropriate emotional response. It would be illogical to attempt to disregard Dr. McCoy’s private recommendation that Spock allow himself time to recuperate from the physical and mental stress he endured. Vulcan physiology has limitations, and Spock has often disregarded them to his own detriment.  
  
“I’m going to change into my own clothes,” Jim says, nodding towards the nook marking the entrance to his closet.  
  
He disappears behind a sliding privacy divider, and Spock folds his hands in his lap, a loose imitation of his favored meditation pose. Through the frosted glass divider, Spock can see Jim’s silhouette, backlit by warm light from the bathing area. Jim moves slowly, stripping off his clothing.  
  
Dizzy with the implication of Jim’s bare skin, Spock closes his eyes and wars with his own complicated fantasy. Spock wishes to stand and push the barrier aside, to look at Jim and then – what might he do? The answer is just out of his grasp, his tired mind wheeling through dozens of improbabilities, unable to extrapolate which course would be statistically favorable.  
  
Mired under the weight of his indecision, it is taken from him. He does not hear Jim return.  
  
A frisson of nonspecific psychic pleasure runs from the base of his spine to the nape of his neck when Jim touches his shoulder, warm thumb on the bare skin of Spock’s trapezius, breaking Spock's mild meditative trance. Directly in front of him, Jim’s bare chest rises and falls slowly, his pants slung low on his hips. Spock’s focus slips involuntarily, and when he looks up at Jim he can feel the rush of concern and care exuding from Jim’s mind.  
  
The connection is instant, irrepressible, and the weight of Jim’s mind glows at the back of Spock’s brain, bright and insistent like a lure. The sensation of Jim’s thoughts within reach is a comfort Spock did not realize he missed.  
  
Spock does not withdraw from the touch -- of Jim’s hand, or his mind. Jim’s curiosity coils on the surface, easy to read, warm and wondering. Psychic privacy is often even more deeply valued by species who lack telepathy or empathy as innate traits, but Jim is unafraid.  
  
Slowly, Spock reaches up and closes his fingers around Jim’s bare wrist, too thin from being fed nutrients intravenously, from the radiation wasting away his body despite the healing compound Dr. McCoy synthesized. Jim blinks down at him, eyes wide, mouth parted, and Spock waits for Jim to visibly recompose himself.  
  
“You’re still upset that I died,” Jim says, discerning the source of Spock’s distress.  
  
“Yes,” Spock says.  
  
“But it’s more than that, isn’t it?” Jim settles down on the bed next to him, close enough that when the mattress dips under his weight they slide together from shoulder to hip. Jim is pleasantly warm, even through Spock’s clothes, and Spock makes no effort to physically disengage from the proximity. If it is inappropriate to feel such for his Captain, there is no one to direct them to behave otherwise, and Spock finds he has had his fill of Starfleet’s particular brand of regulation.  
  
He will not lie; it has been made clear that this friendship has become vital to him, and he will not conceal himself even though the truth terrifies him down to his very marrow. The loss of Jim ripped every shred of what he understood as being Vulcan to expose the hideous, violent truth of his father’s genealogy, and he can no more flee from the ferocity of his reaction than he can from acknowledging his mother’s bestowals.  
  
He is a child of two worlds, sum of dual turbulent legacies, and Jim feels like the eye of his storm, the calm, balanced heart that Spock did not believe he could possess.  
  
“I – forgot myself,” Spock says. “I fought with intent to kill out of anger. I sought revenge. I failed to discharge my duty to the ship and her crew out. It goes against what it means to be Vulcan.”  
  
“I’m so sorry,” Jim says, soft and low.  
  
Spock bows his head. “Jim, no blame lies with you.”  
  
“I didn’t want to do it, you know,” Jim says. “I’ve seen the news nets. They’re calling it an act of heroism, but I just couldn't see any alternatives. It wasn't -- I just couldn't think of another way to save us. I keep feeling that if I had done more, if I had trusted Scotty or reported Marcus --”  
  
“Jim,” Spock says, attempting to quell the flood of guilt and shame Jim projects. “There will be time to learn from these events. It is ill-advised to dwell on matters when your compromised health clouds your judgment.”  
  
Jim quiets, then shakes his head, smile lopsided and fond. “You’re as bad as Bones.”  
  
“Certainly not,” Spock says airily. “Had I the distinct pleasure of a medical education, it would be unlikely I would allow you to care for yourself at all.”  
  
Head tipped back, Jim laughs until he collapses backwards on the bed. Spock follows so they are on even footing, still shoulder to shoulder. It feels fitting to be here, Spock's whole world tilted, and he weighs the benefits of allowing himself to experience Jim’s unrepentant joy against the Vulcan tenants of self-control. A subtle giddiness bubbles up inside him, both relief and the heady pleasure of self-discovery.  
  
Jim’s happiness is short-lived. A coughing spell interrupts Jim’s laughter, and Jim rolls to his side, away from Spock, shaking with the effort. Spock places a soothing hand between Jim’s shoulder blades. Jim shivers even after the fit subsides, and Spock recognizes the undercurrent of exhaustion below the indistinct noise of Jim’s surface thoughts.  
  
Breathing slowly, Jim eventually relaxes beneath Spock’s hand. Jim rasps, “I thought it was inappropriate for Vulcans to touch people.”  
  
“Propriety and personal desire are often at odds,” Spock says, voice thick with emotion and the effort of honesty. “I struggle with both extremes.”  
  
Jim unfolds himself slowly, blinking up at the ceiling. His lashes are wet, lips too dry. Spock thinks to fetch Jim some water, but he does not want to disturb the tender easiness between them. Torn between the desire to care for Jim and the desire to be close to Jim, Spock does nothing.  
  
Jim says, “Emotion has a price, I guess.” His gaze slides towards Spock. His expression is affectionate.  
  
Outside, heat lightning flickers across the sky, distant thunder rolling, and Jim’s features are lit in flashes of white and gold. Spock reaches out and touches Jim’s face -- brow, cheek, thumb aside Jim's nose -- and Jim stares back at him, trusting. Jim lays his fingers over Spock’s meld points with an innocently curious expression, just the barest touch of warm skin, and Spock is momentarily paralyzed by the intimacy of the gesture.  
  
“Value is relative,” Spock says. “But I am learning a new currency.”  
  
Curiosity, warmth, and something else unfamiliar but brave radiate from Jim. His face is all joy-crinkled golden skin, eyes bright, searching Spock’s face for something.  
  
Jim drags the pad of his thumb over the line of Spock’s cheekbone. Spock makes a small sound, an inexcusable loss of control, and trembles visibly.  
  
All at once, Spock watches the change, watches them both stumble over their careful lines in the sand, and understands this is another redefinition. Jim's pupils rapidly dilate, cheeks flush, his lips parting minutely to reveal a thin gleam of teeth and an innuendo of wet tongue. Spock carefully touches the small of Jim’s back and takes in the sensation of hot skin, the first moisture of sweat evident even through Spock's shirt. He smells like the sea.  
  
The lightning breaks again, the trailing thunder shattering the moment. Jim is smiling at Spock, and Spock’s thoughts are chaos. He wants everything at once. Jim touches the back of Spock’s hand, then sits up.  
  
“We should get some sleep. Starfleet will eventually come knocking, and I'd like to be able to stand on my own two legs when they do,” Jim says.  
  
His skin is smooth, paler than it should be, and Spock can see the faint outline of his ribs, the fading smudges of bruising too extensive for regenerators to erase. Spock’s jaw works, his anger still raw, and he struggles to find balance while Jim curls bonelessly into the soft heap of unmade bedding.  
  
“Stop staring and come to bed,” Jim says, gruff but good-natured, face-down and spine curving elegantly. “I’m not going to disappear.”  
  
Spock gazes down at Jim’s back, taking measured breaths, then averts his eyes, grappling with his own turmoil. He removes his shoes and tunic, too exhausted to fetch his sleep attire from his luggage, then levers himself into empty space beside Jim. The space between them remains polite, but Spock’s skin itches with the urge to forge a connection with Jim.  
  
Impulsively, he raises two fingers to the join of Jim’s jaw and traces a line down over the light stubble, then the tendons of his neck, and over his exposed shoulders. He catalogs the feel of smooth skin, attempts to memorize the roadmap Jim's faint freckles make across his skin. Spock can feel a surge of sleepy arousal and affection burning away at Jim in the wake of his caress.  
  
Jim exhales slowly, one eye open, and hooks his bare foot over Spock’s ankle. He says, “Go to sleep, I’m here.”  
  
The background hum of Jim’s sleepy, superficial thoughts fills the empty space buzzing at the back of Spock’s mind, blotting out the angry, exhausted jangle of his own.

 

* * *

 

Jim falls asleep easily, but when he wakes, every damn muscle in his body feels like it’s been six rounds in a boxing ring with a Gorn. There’s a distinct fuzziness in his head, and he’s warm, like he’s been left in a hot bath a little too long. Everything is sticky, his skin covered in sour, medicinal sweat.  
  
Spock is still sleeping restlessly atop his comforter, his left hand curled into a fist next to his mouth, a worried divot between his angled brows. Jim can only make out the tip of one ear, but Spock’s eyelids twitch, some likely unnamed nightmare plaguing him.  
  
It isn't quite morning yet, only the barest scrap of sunlight creating the horizon, the window tinting diffusing it into a faded, watercolor smudge, pink and orange.  
  
Jim heaves himself into a sitting position, arms folded over his belly, and admires the way Spock’s pale skin stretches over his muscles. Out of everything, this tense thing building between them seems like both the most plausible outcome and the most surprising. He thinks maybe they should discuss it, but so many other things hang heavily over Jim that it seems so immaterial and obvious.  
  
He’ll wake Spock after he showers, he decides, and they can eat and talk. But first, he wants to clean himself up, scrub away all the things that have been building up under his bones. His skin itches. He retrieves his package from the kitchen, where he left it the night before.  
  
The bathroom lights flicker on automatically when he enters. Jim stares at himself in the mirror over the sink. He had a look at himself at Starfleet Medical, under the unflatteringly bright lights, but his body looks even more like a warzone now that he's stood in his own home.  
  
There is still some extensive bruising, and if they’re definitely unpleasant, he’s had worse. It’s more alarming to see just how thin two weeks in a biobed left him. Jim hasn't been able to see his ribs like that since he was spat out of his stepfather's house at fifteen and had to make it on his own. Even Bones’ miracle cure couldn’t keep the radiation from eating away at him.  
  
It's just more pain. He died, and in the first few panicked hours, after the glow of seeing Spock and the noisy brain fog of the pain suppressants gave way to an ache that crawled out from his bones, he wished he had stayed dead.  
  
A Starfleet captain can't cheat death. But here he is. He feels fine. Tired, but fine.  
  
He rubs his lower lip, and when he spits into the sink, his saliva is pink with blood. It isn't a surprise when his readouts flag him as slightly anemic, which explains his exhaustion. His white count looks fine, and his vitals are holding steady, but he’ll dose himself anyways, because he looks like he’s been taken apart and reassembled in the wrong order.  
  
He fumbles the box open. Inside, packed neatly, is a week’s course of Bones’ special medication cocktail, all neatly bottled into little glass hypospray cartridges. They're a friendly green color, and slosh gently when Jim sets each one on the counter.  
  
Two a day, in twelve-hour intervals. Just like the handful of lines of code he injected into the _Kobayashi Maru_ simulation, they’ll let Jim win an unwinnable scenario.  
  
Jim slots the first one into the hypo, depresses the lever against his neck, and ejects the empty cartridge into the recycler. His hands only shake a little, mostly nerves, and the effects are immediate, his tremors evening out. There’s something to be said for having the medical advancements of a thousand Federation worlds at your disposal.  
  
He showers, scrubbing hard at his skin, until he’s red all over. Real water, soap that lathers, a luxury even on Earth, in a city with thirty million permanent residents. No one here lives in squalor unless it's voluntary, Starfleet sees to that, but there's plentiful privilege to be had in service of the organization lining the pockets of the Federation with hundreds of new worlds.  
  
When he steps out and dries his hair, he doesn't look at himself in the mirror.  
  
He picks a new pair of pants, frowning over the selection -- they’re all a touch too big for him. The environmental controls have removed the light filters from the windows, and he can see a wide, undamaged slice of San Francisco bustling beneath them. Somewhere, people are still pulling bodies out of the mountains of rubble.  
  
Spock stirs slowly, blinking awake as Jim touches the crown of his head. His hair is ruffled from sleep, charming, and Jim thinks of the slow heat that built beneath his skin when Spock touched him the night before. There's an unfamiliar hesitation in Spock’s movements, as if he isn't quite certain of himself.  
  
“Hey there,” Jim says, warmed by the slow sweep of Spock’s lashes. He skims his fingertips over the dip of Spock' throat, just to watch Spock swallow reflexively. “Feeling any better?”  
  
For a moment, Jim is certain that Spock will deny feeling anything at all, but Spock shakes off the lingering remnants of his shuttered apprehension.  
  
Spock unerringly reaches for the small red mark left by the hypospray. “Dr. McCoy has provided you additional supplements.”  
  
“I can't sneak anything past you,” Jim murmurs, and touches Spock’s shoulder.  
  
Jim’s rewarded with a low, throaty hum that goes straight to Jim’s groin. He knows that, with the physical contact, Spock can pick up the desire that’s building, but Jim doesn’t withdraw. Jim’s never been one to shy away from a physical engagement. Spock looks refreshed, if not quite happy, and Jim suspects there's quite a lot more going on behind his dark eyes right now than Spock is letting on.  
  
“You should allow me care for you,” Spock says, levering himself onto his elbow. His face pinches with concern. “You are still suffering the effects of radiation sickness? Dr. McCoy did not include this in his report.”  
  
Jim holds up both hands in a gesture of self-defense. “Hardly any. I'm practically a picture of health, promise. Readouts are in the bathroom, if you don't believe me.”  
  
“You did not leave Starfleet Medical with additional supplies,” Spock observes.  
  
“Bones didn't exactly tell the truth to Starfleet Medical about the fact that I was pronounced dead before he injected me,” Jim says. “They still think he pulled off a miracle -- just a slightly more plausible one.”  
  
“It would be unethical to mislead them as to the nature of the treatment,” Spock says, mouth twisted in a moue of displeasure.  
  
“Just like it would be unethical to erase ship's data to cover the fact that the extraction of Khan's genetic material was less than consensual?” Jim says lightly.  
  
Spock stiffens, and Jim knows he’s hit the nail on the head. The data feed he reviewed made it seem like Bones had synthesized a substance to counteract acute radiation poisoning from a prior sample of Khan’s blood. A sample Jim knows for a fact wasn't enough to give Jim the kind of kick he needed to roll out of his grave.  
  
“Jim --”  
  
“You don't need to explain. I only wish you hadn't needed to compromise everything you stand for,” Jim says, softly, sad. “I know how much your integrity means to you.”  
  
Spock blinks slowly, his inner eyelids shuttering, betraying his alarm. He reaches for Jim, and Jim feels his heart constrict, because they almost lost everything. Not just the two of them, but the _Enterprise_ and her entire crew. Jim reaches back. Spock is sublimely cool to the touch against his feverish skin, and Jim marvels that he’s being allowed so much liberty to explore the smooth expanse of Spock’s body.  
  
“I do not regret my actions,” Spock says, with such veracity that Jim is momentarily taken aback. He doesn't have the advantage of touch telepathy, but the way Spock quivers under his hands, like a spring wound too tightly, is enough. “I have come to realize that I will do much to protect that which is mine.”  
  
“Starfleet might not see anything our way,” Jim says. “Bones says he expects us to be involved in some kind of formal proceedings.”  
  
“It could take as many as two years to gather and catalog the evidence against Admiral Marcus for a formal Starfleet hearing,” Spock says. “This matter may be complicated by the fact that any representation provided must defend the accused posthumously.”  
  
Jim rubs a hand tiredly over his face. “Do you think they’ll ground us for the duration?”  
  
“I am uncertain,” Spock says. He pauses, mouth a flat line, considering Jim. “However, were we both to remain on Earth _,_ I am disinclined to offer complaint.”  
  
Hoarsely, Jim manages, “I think a little shore leave might be in order.”  
  
Spock pulls Jim against him and loops a strong arm around his waist, surprising Jim with the easy, affectionate weight of the embrace. It’s no more intimate than the hug Bones visited on him, but then Spock pushes his nose behind Jim’s ear and inhales deeply. “You are distressed.”  
  
“Telepathy is cheating,” Jim says, but he's grateful for it. It's comforting that he doesn't have to be alone if he doesn't want to be, that Spock could have a hardline into his brain if Jim wanted it, if Jim could bring himself to ask.  
  
He died on the other side of that wall, alone in his own mind. A wave of anxiety rips through him, his chest constricting, and the next moment Spock has a blanket around him, Jim cradled against his side, shivering but not cold.  
  
“Did we do the right thing, Spock?” Jim asks. His jaw won't unclench, even though Spock is running a soothing palm up and down the length of his spine.  
  
“I am unsure,” Spock answers. “We did many things, and very few of our choices were clear.”  
  
Jim sweeps his arm out towards the window, towards the bay, towards the smoking wreckage of Starfleet and everything Jim thought they stood for. “If we didn't chase after Khan, this wouldn't have happened.”  
  
“ _Kadiith_ , Jim,” Spock says. “It is not improbable that Khan might have found some other, more disastrous method of seeking revenge for Admiral Marcus’s transgressions. You cannot know.”  
  
It’s so simple, their path reduced to just that -- they control what they can, they do their best. They can only make themselves better, not the whole universe. Spock looks at him seriously, seeking. Jim gives in to it, the levee bursting, succumbing to the flood of hope and determination.  
  
_Kadiith_. What is, is. Jim can’t undo the mess they’ve made, but he can get well, and then he can help make sure it doesn’t happen again.  
  
“I hate it when you’re right,” Jim says, sighing explosively. “It’s just so --”  
  
“Logical?” Spock asks. There’s a flicker of something resembling amusement around the corners of his eyes. They crinkle, and Jim finds himself smiling involuntarily.  
  
“I was going to say ‘infuriating,’” Jim retorts, but his smile has blossomed into a grin. Spock’s expression is practically merry for a Vulcan. When it makes a showing, Spock’s wit is sparking, rich, subtle. Jim never got to meet Amanda Grayson, but he thinks that she must have been like Spock -- irrepressible.  
  
Spock makes a noncommittal sound, settling into what Jim recognizes as his favored position for meditation. “Then I must reflect upon the inaccuracy of my predictions.”  
  
The sun has risen, casting the bay into tones of deep gold and umber. Jim looks out at the grey flecks of the seabirds coasting low across the beach, watching them wing upwards and dive into the glassy water below. He can remember standing on distant shores, further than any pre-warp Human could travel in a lifetime, watching the aerial acrobatics of bioluminescent mantas over the green-gold seas, Spock at his side.  
  
They have so much, but men like Marcus want to turn the universe inside out, afraid of anything they don't understand.  
  
Jim won’t let that happen. He won’t lose sight of what Starfleet stands for.  
  
Jim’s doubts are still there, but they only linger like shadows in the corners of his mind. When he dozes off again, it’s to the sound of the atmospheric controls and Spock’s level, slow breathing. In and out, like the waves.

 

* * *

 

Spock regains consciousness seven point two nine hours after succumbing to exhaustion. The typical Vulcan rest period is less than half that duration, yet he feels an unfamiliar languor in his body and a reluctance to wake. The cacophony in his mind has stilled, replaced by a restive calm, and it takes a more conscious effort to register Jim’s psychic presence.  
  
Jim is sprawled lazily next to him, one arm slung over his head, a PADD leaning against his thigh. He appears to have risen and eaten, an empty plate on the nightstand.  
  
Spock covertly watches the slow rise and fall of Jim’s chest, using each breath to exorcise the persistent ache of watching Jim go still and limp and sick.  
  
“Hello, Sleeping Beauty,” Jim says. He sets the PADD on the bedside table and looks back at Spock, openly curious. “Feel better?”  
  
“I am improved,” Spock says, watching Jim, content to study the way Jim no longer looks pinched and too tired. Jim is still unwell, that much is plain, but in the daylight he only looks like a man on the mend.  
  
“Good,” Jim says. “Bones shouldn't have let you strain yourself like that.”  
  
“He was unaware of the full extent of my condition. I claim sole responsibility for my actions,” Spock says.  
  
The look Jim gives him is measuring, then he shakes his head, eyes closed. For a moment, Spock is uncertain Jim has not fallen asleep.  
  
Jim abruptly smiles in that sly way that Spock has come to recognize as preceding a joke, then says, “I don't think anyone is going to believe me that I finally managed to get a Vulcan into bed with me.”  
  
Spock feels the involuntary flush spread from his hairline to his chest, sudden heat welling in his side, heart thundering. Jim tracks the response, and his smile broadens into a sunny, unabashed grin.  
  
“Misrepresentation of the situation may undermine your credibility,” Spock says, but he surrendered to this thing before he ever knew the shape of it.  
  
Jim’s palm is warm and dry, and Spock cannot suppress the visible shudder of pleasure that passes through his body when Jim strokes the nape of Spock’s neck. “Am I misrepresenting?”  
  
“Negative,” Spock says, thinking briefly of the sweet way Nyota first kissed him, confident and tender, and how little the colorful press of Jim’s thoughts feels so unlike Nyota’s serene and ordered mind. This desire for Jim is unasked for, unsuspected, but not unwanted.  
  
He goes limp, warm all over, as Jim strokes a hand through his hair, blunt fingernails against his scalp.  
  
“Didn't think so,” Jim says, expression thoughtful, his thoughts a comforting buzz. Spock can feel the slow churn of Jim’s mind turning over hidden possibilities, now revealed. “Do you want to talk about Nyota? I -- don't want to get in the way.”  
  
Spock does not say that the sweet thing he had with Nyota, bright and fearless as she is, was doomed to suffocate and die from the beginning. They understand one another in this, Spock and Nyota, only as two minds with different dreams might.  
  
“There is little to speak of. We have come to understand that we do not meet one another’s needs,” Spock says. This pain, he rations carefully, lest it overwhelm him. He has seen it clearly in her mind, her love, how gentle, and how she had no space for herself, no willingness to be part of his whole, left with no structure of her own in the unyielding order of his mind.  
  
They lie for some time in the sunshine, Jim’s hand in Spock’s hair, Spock rendered immobile by the sonorous timbre of his own desires. If Spock concentrates, he can almost conjure the complete sense memory of Vulcan-that-was in the winter, of long rays of light crawling across the floors of his father’s home, the small brush-dwelling _lara_ birds his only companions in his studies for the Vulcan Science Academy. The memory is bittersweet, and intermittently he feels every loss anew.  
  
Every time Jim makes contact with Spock’s skin, pleasure ricochets up from the bottom of his spine, an echo of Jim’s mingled affection and slowly unfurling desire. Midday slips into blue-skied afternoon, Spock’s heartbeat keeping time as he watches Jim breathe with heavy-lidded eyes, basking in the liminal tug of Jim’s proximity.  
  
An hour passes, the time insubstantial. Jim finally rolls against him, heavy and warm against Spock’s side. He mouths at the exposed skin just below Spock’s hairline and murmurs, “What do we do now?”  
  
“The _Enterprise_ is undergoing a refit, and Starfleet and the Federation are opening a formal investigation,” Spock says. He turns to accept Jim into the cradle of his arms and presses his face to the hinge of Jim’s jaw, just below his ear, inhaling the scent of Jim’s skin, more intrepid than he feels and more tender than he knew himself able to be. “There is time for healing.”  
  
Jim’s PADD beeps twice, shattering the tenuous boldness fluttering in Spock’s side; Jim groans, rolling away, and fumbles for the PADD. Spock props himself up on both elbows, watching Jim silently for signs of discomfort.  
  
“It’s Bones, I can’t ignore him,” Jim says, apologetic. Jim taps the PADD twice to answer the call, and McCoy’s face appears. Spock regards him, safely out of the camera’s viewing angle. McCoy looks tired, but he is wearing civilian clothing and appears to be reclining somewhere hot and sunny.  
  
“Jim,” McCoy says, “good to see you’re listening to me for once about getting some rest.”  
  
“Can't do much else, Bones. You have me on medical lockdown,” Jim says. “I can't even access the rebuild specs for the _Enterprise._ That's cruel, even for you.”  
  
Jim juggles the PADD with one hand, propping it in his lap, and slides the other towards Spock, beneath the blankets. Spock eases his own arm out, exercising caution, and Jim laces his fingers through Spock’s. Jim drags his thumbnail delicately along the inner curve of Spock’s palm. The contact stimulates the sensitive psi-receptors in his hands and incites a wave of psychic pleasure so intense Spock has to press his mouth into the crook of his arm to stifle his vocalization.  
  
“Seems fair, what with you giving the whole crew a scare,” McCoy is saying. “Speaking of, how’s our favorite Vulcan nursemaid? Don't think I didn't notice he was barely in better shape than you.”  
  
Jim’s glances over at Spock. “Happy to say he’s also resting. A model patient.”  
  
Spock would not, strictly, categorize the experience as restful. Jim drags his thumbnail back up the length of Spock’s palm; Spock is better prepared, but the sensation adds a new layer of desire atop the rest.  
  
McCoy is perceptive. He rolls his eyes and says, “You just better not be getting into anything too strenuous before I clear you for it.”  
  
Jim is grinning, bright and sunny, unconcerned with the raw newness of it all, of the untamed emotions that enthrall and terrify Spock in equal portions. Spock finds Jim’s fearlessness alluring, steadying.  
  
“I promise I'll take it easy, Bones,” Jim says. “I wouldn't want to delay getting away from these meddling bureaucratic bastards and back out of Earth atmo.”  
  
“Yeah, well, keep your head down. They're out for blood. Fortunately, Marcus chummed the waters pretty well all on his own. Just try not to make yourself a target this time,” McCoy says. He turns to look at someone off screen, and then nods. “Gotta go, Jim. I’ve got Jo. I was just checking you were listening for once. Miracles really do happen.”  
  
The second the screen goes dark, Jim returns the PADD to the charging dock. “I guess we’re caught. Do you want to talk about this?”  
  
Spock extricates himself from Jim’s grasp and rights himself, folding his legs neatly beneath him. “Do you wish to discuss the parameters of our friendship?”  
  
“Friendship?” Jim asks, propping himself on his elbows, grin sloped and teasing. He sucks his lower lip into his mouth, and Spock finds he desires to know the texture of Jim’s skin beneath his tongue. “Do Vulcan friends climb into bed with one another after horrible tragedies?”  
  
“Vulcan interpersonal relationships differ vastly from typical Human companionships,” Spock says, stiff and unsure. He is uncertain of the conversational terrain; Nyota had been beneficently forthright in their brief period of courtship. “I would not categorize my regard for you as 'friendly’ by Human definition.”  
  
“And by Vulcan definition?” Jim eyes him shrewdly, the question a maneuver to corner Spock. It is not an ineffective strategy.  
  
A thrill runs through Spock; he thinks he could quench himself in Jim, could quiet the way his mind burns with shame and desire. He mills down his own apprehension, allowing his emotions reign for this one small, infinitely valuable moment. “Vulcan interpersonal relationships are multifaceted, and often the scope extends beyond the external self.”  
  
“That's not an answer, Spock,” Jim says. He reaches out and curls his hand around the nape of Spock’s neck. The contact quells the riot of heat and fear that roils under his skin and fills him with the quiet warmth of Jim’s regard -- friendship, warmth, compassion -- and the calm disappears almost as soon as Jim lets his hand drop.  
  
Spock pauses, metering the spike of apprehension that briefly overtakes him. “Your touch calms my mind. I know now I would sacrifice much to remain by your side.”  
  
Jim closes his eyes and swallows. There’s a hint of pink to his cheeks, two rosy apples in the too-pale tint of his sleep-warm skin. “This really isn't the kind of conversation I thought I’d ever be having with you.”  
  
“I confess myself to also be at a disadvantage,” Spock says, outwardly far more tranquil than he feels. “Perhaps you would appreciate a more direct approach?”  
  
Jim props himself up on both elbows, and Spock is unable to keep himself from admiring the bare expanse of Jim’s chest, broad and flat and masculine. His nipples are hard, even though the room is warm. “What’d you have in mind?”  
  
Spock runs his thumb along the gentle curve of Jim’s lower lip, tracing the divide between Jim’s chin and the pale, tempting pink of his mouth. Jim’s stubble is raspy against the pad of his finger, even that small thing a rush, and Spock leans in. “Perhaps a kiss would be a suitable beginning?”  
  
The slow, exaggerated bob of Jim’s throat is mesmerizing. He says, “Yeah, I can do that.”  
  
The emotion that blooms under the caress of Spock’s fingertips is heady and satisfying. Spock knows his feelings for Nyota are not disingenuous, and he mourns the loss of what they had, but Jim is a bright star in his mind. There is room for little else to shine.  
  
He cups the nape of Jim’s neck, firm and sure, and kisses away Jim’s trembling breaths. Spock crowds Jim against the headboard, demanding and careful all at once. Jim’s free hand explores tentatively, tracing a path over Spock’s heart, up his sternum, throat, jaw, the delicately sensitive tip of his ear. He sucks on Jim’s lower lip, satisfied to find the taste and texture of it exceed his expectations, and Jim sinks his hand into Spock’s hair. The immediacy of Jim’s response is intoxicating.  
  
Jim slides both hands up Spock’s sides, seeking hungrily over Spock’s bare skin, his mouth soft and wet and incomprehensibly delicious.  
  
He murmurs, “I’ve thought about this before,” against Spock’s mouth like a confession. Spock has no defense for the weight of emotion in Jim’s voice, beneath his tongue, in the skin and the marrow of his bones and his mind.  
  
When Jim breaks away to catch his breath, Spock closes his teeth over the firm, warm muscle of Jim’s shoulder. Jim tips his head back and laughs while Spock worries at his skin, marking over Khan’s bruises with his own soft bites, reclaiming Jim. He can feel the thrum of Jim’s delight and desire like a storm behind his eyes, every psi-receptor in his body alight with their mutual need.  
  
The divide between them is still muddled and thick with restraint, discipline keeping Spock from dropping into Jim’s bright mind, but Spock understands he could easily lose himself in the sparking beauty of the sensation.  
  
“What do you need?” Jim asks, eyes bright, scattering kisses along the side of Spock’s face and jaw. Spock can smell him everywhere, warm and salty, musky from sleep and arousal. Spock wants him more than anything in that moment, Jim undone beneath his hands. “How can I help?”  
  
Spock answers by pressing his thumb into Jim’s mouth, coaxing it past the slick pink of his lips, and Jim sucks at it hungrily. His mouth is improbably wet, and the slick slide of it rouses a fierce surge of desire and protectiveness in Spock, something primal and unstoppable that uncoils with his bone-deep need. He hauls Jim into his lap, careful not to jostle him overmuch, and swallows Jim’s moan.  
  
For a moment, Spock can forget the way his fists fell against unyielding flesh, can forget the violence, because kissing Jim is like having captured the very spark of vitality in his hands. Jim straddles his lap, rolling his hips slowly, inevitable, and while Spock holds Jim against him, Jim both holds Spock together and undoes him with his eager mouth.  
  
Jim drags his nails down Spock’s bare back, and Spock sinks both hands into Jim’s hair, captivated by the slide of skin on skin. Spock stood at the Kobayashi Maru hearing and accused Jim of not learning a lesson, that a Starfleet captain could not cheat death, but he is living proof of the opposite, warm and vital in the circle of Spock’s arms. He is more valuable than Spock could have ever expected.  
  
“Jim, I would have you,” Spock says, strained. There are worlds beyond calculable reckoning, inexplicable phenomenon in the vastness of space, but Spock has to look no further than this sunlit bed to discover innumerable wonders.  
  
“Come on,” Jim says. He grips the waistband of Spock’s uniform trousers and tugs, straining the clasps, and the impression of his need is so strong that it tastes metallic on Spock’s tongue. “Come on, show me what you want.”  
  
Spock lays Jim onto the pillows and follows, seeking the secret places of his body, tasting the warmth of his skin, lapping damp lines up his ribs, down to the hollow of his navel. Jim gasps, hands on Spock’s shoulders, and pushes up against him, erect below the straining fabric of his clothes. Spock runs the heel of his palm up the hard, hot length of it, and Jim’s hips lift from the bed. He hooks his hands under the fabric and shucks the rest of Jim’s clothes with practiced ease  
  
“Be still a moment,” Spock murmurs, and applies the flat of his tongue to the length of Jim’s abdominal muscles. Jim’s skin tastes faintly like sweat, like sodium and the underlying musky tang of Human skin. He is beautiful, thus exposed, his erection curving gently over his abdomen, the base disappearing into a neatly-kept curl of golden hair, the head of his glans darkened to a deep, engorged red.  
  
Jim grips the hair at the nape of Spock’s neck, grinning and breathless. He does not quite listen, undulating beneath Spock’s ministrations; Spock did not think he would. “Really hard, when you’re doing that.”  
  
“I am confident you will succeed if you apply yourself,” Spock says, and bites just below Jim’s navel. The sensation washes back against him, and he rubs his cheek against the warm, firm muscle above Jim’s erection, languishing in the physicality of it. After weeks of emotional turmoil, Spock finds his own near-feral desire cleansing.  
  
The skin to skin contact settles something deep inside him that Spock was unaware of, steadies him even as he burns for Jim. He thinks of Vulcan-that-was, of his people bound inextricably to one another, an unbreaking chain _katra_ to _katra_. It wakes in him something of the deep desert, and he drinks in the scent of Jim like a beast to water.  
  
“You might have some unrealistically high standards for me,” Jim says, sounding pleased and breathless. He rocks his hips up against Spock, needy, erection drawing line of preejaculate across Spock’s pectoral muscle and clavicle.  
  
“I would not ask more than you are capable of, Jim,” Spock murmurs, slinging Jim’s legs over his shoulders. He holds the base of Jim’s erection and strokes upwards, once, watching as Jim thrusts helplessly into his grasp, pinned by the weight of Spock’s torso. “I am certain under my tutelage, you will succeed.”  
  
A choked little sound escapes Jim and he flexes upward, but Spock presses firmly down on the cradle of his hips, lapping delicately at the underside of Jim’s testicles. The result is pleasing.  
  
Jim gasps, his blunt fingernails scrabbling helplessly at Spock’s shoulders. “I’m so glad I didn’t have you as a professor at the Academy.”  
  
Spock raises one eyebrow. “May I inquire as to why?”  
  
The grin Jim offers is salacious and self-satisfied. “I would’ve been at all your office hours trying to get extra credit -- just to hear you talk about how you’re going to teach me things.”  
  
“Lechery does not become you,” Spock murmurs, biting down on the soft skin below Jim’s navel. He runs his tongue up the inside of Jim’s thigh. As inappropriate as it would be, Jim would look lovely spread over the length of Spock’s desk. “Perhaps I shall have the opportunity to instruct you on the proper protocol for addressing a Starfleet Academy professor.”  
  
He takes Jim into his mouth before Jim can respond and is rewarded with a litany of startled curses. Spock relishes the dull bite of Jim’s fingers, gripping hard enough to bruise, as much as the hot salt taste of Jim on the back of his tongue. This thing between them has grown a life of its own, and Spock feels as though he could climb inside Jim, wrap their minds together, and still not be close enough.  
  
A feeling builds in Spock’s chest, an alien echo of Jim’s heartbeat, pounding through him, a slow rolling thunder compared to Spock’s hummingbird flutter. This close, Spock can feel the phantasmal echoes of pleasure that shock up and down Jim’s spine, can feel the damp, luxuriant waves of Jim’s arousal. His tongue takes Jim in broad, slow strokes, his cheeks hollowed out around the length of Jim.  
  
The scents of prairie grass, corn fields, and summertime fill Spock’s senses, Jim’s memories leaking through the patchy cracks in Spock’s shields. The sky outside is a space-deep, sunlit blue, the wreckage of thousands of lives still smoldering somewhere below, but Spock can feel the endless twilight skyline of Jim’s childhood and an infinite skyscape behind his eyes, like a bowl of stars upended over the world. He wars with the self-control to keep himself closed away, to preserve this modicum of telepathic privacy, but Jim pries him open with his own reckless vulnerability.  
  
“I want you in me,” Jim says, eyes wide and pleasure-dazed, and Spock is uncertain whether Jim means in body or mind. He puts his hand on Spock’s face, a caress and an invitation, and gestures towards the bedside table.  
  
A rumble builds in Spock’s chest, a vibrating thrum, more sensation than sound. Jim fills his mouth, heavy on his tongue, and he takes Jim deeply. The head of Jim’s erection slides past the back of Spock’s tongue, and he rolls it along the underside of Jim’s slippery glans. Jim makes a sharp, high, helpless noise.  
  
Spock reaches for the small drawer and finds the lubricant without relenting. Jim’s eyes roll back, and his spine bows beautifully as Spock applies a firmer suction, then pulls off to lick lower, lapping at the heavier musk of Jim’s testicles and the dusky pink skin of his perineum. He tastes clean and sharp there, and Spock would bury his face between the firm muscles of Jim’s gluteus were Jim not already reduced to begging.  
  
Rising on one elbow, Spock slicks up one finger generously and probes for the soft, warm circle of muscle. Spock is not an expert in intercourse with Human males, but he understands the concept and moves delicately, hyper aware of every tender response of Jim’s body. Jim gives beneath the press of a single finger, eager and flushed a lovely pink-red, his body decadently pliable.  
  
The light renders Jim luminous where it falls across them on the bed. His hair is damp at the nape of his neck, his legs spread decadently. Spock is certain he will always remember the sight of Jim like this, from the warmth of his bare foot pressed to the back of Spock’s calf to the uninhibited affection in his unfocused gaze.  
  
“I can take another one,” Jim eventually asserts, licking his lips. Spock bends and kisses him again, and slides a second finger alongside the first, pushing slowly inward. It is easier than Spock first feared, but still a wonder to think of how Jim’s body will feel around him. Jim’s breath stutters against Spock’s mouth, and Jim bites sweetly at Spock’s lower lip. “How much of that can you feel?”  
  
“Much, but not all,” Spock murmurs between kisses, distracted by the way Jim’s tongue slides against his own. The sensation is murky, faint impressions laid over his own, He works his fingers in and out of Jim’s body, feeling for the slow, rhythmic way Jim’s pleasure builds, stroking to either side of Jim’s prostate. “I would touch your mind if you would allow it. We might share more, that way.”  
  
Jim groans into Spock’s mouth, digs his fingers into Spock’s skin. A powerful bolt of Jim’s surprise and want strikes Spock, unexpected, and he jerks back and stares at Jim, wracked by a full body shudder he cannot suppress. Jim looks back at him, and Spock is certain he has never needed anything so much as to curl into the warm shelter of Jim’s mind.  
  
“Anything you want,” Jim says. “I’m here. Anything.” He cradles Spock’s free hand and places it against his face, lifting his hips to rock hungrily against the fingers buried inside his body. Even just the physical contact is like holding fire, the closed loop of sensation incomparable.  
  
“Do you consent to a meld?” Spock asks, pressing two fingers against Jim’s mouth.  
  
“Yeah,” Jim says. “Want all of you. Everything.” Jim takes the digits with a soft sound, gently dragging his teeth over Spock’s knuckles, and sucks hard at them. He draws off with a lurid pop, and behind the sound something desperately hopeful yawns open between them, a painful earnestness.  
  
He withdraws his fingers from Jim’s body and exposes himself, rolling his pants around his hips, too eager to feel Jim to waste time fully removing his clothing. Spock applies lubrication to the length of his own phallus, fisting it until the length of it is flushed and the slick, protective foreskin is rolled back, revealing the sensitive tip. Jim watches, enraptured, mouth open. Spock would rut against every part of him, worked into a lather.  
  
Jim lifts his hips and slides against Spock, until the length of Spock’s erection is seated between the slippery globes of his gluteal muscles.  
  
“You look so good like this,” Jim says. “You should see yourself.”  
  
The head of Spock’s phallus rubs against the entrance to Jim’s body, and Spock grips himself, angling until he breaches Jim. It draws a soft cry from Jim, his breathing suddenly gone ragged.  
  
“I intend to repeat the experience, if you find it gratifying,” Spock rumbles.  
  
Jim rocks his hips, slowly adjusting to the penetration, splayed decadently across Spock’s lap. Sweat beads on his face, and Spock curls over to lick it away while he undulates his hips, working himself deeper with each shallow thrust.  
  
The smile Jim offers him is soporific, Jim’s hand on his face as hot as a brand. “C’mon. Let me have you?”  
  
Spock slides home with an involuntary noise, bitten back but unstoppable, and initiates a meld in that selfsame moment. Jim moves to meet him, and they come together at the end, Jim full and Spock cradled in the warmth of him.  
  
The bed creaks beneath their combined weight, and Jim lets loose an incredible sound that makes Spock feel like he’s been hollowed out and filled with nothing but volcanic desire. He wonders, at first, how he can possibly bear this sensation, how he can possibly bear to have lived without the dual haven of Jim’s thoughts and the slick draw of Jim’s body.  
  
The interminable waves of Jim’s mind break against Spock, his thoughts washed and tumbled in the rising tide of Jim’s joy. In the sunlight, Jim looks gold-pink, overflowing with warmth, and Spock watches him with wonder as he begins to move, slow and sure.  
  
There are no questions left here, only a steady discovery, flesh to flesh, mind to mind. His heart thunders beneath Jim’s hand, and Spock might joyfully spill it into Jim’s open palms if it would bring Jim half a measure of happiness.  
  
He thinks that he begins to unearth the quality that first drew Vulcans to Earth, to foster the Human species, with all its flaws. The still, watery depths of Jim’s mind roll over Spock’ desert thoughts, filling every gap in his mindscape with warm affection. To hold it back would be to try to empty the ocean with a sieve.  
  
“Always touching,” Jim says, an unexpected and curious echo of Spock’s own private desires, words Jim could not know. Jim's mind stills over his, smooth and glassy as a reflecting pool, a calm sea mirroring the bright stars of Spock's thoughts.  
  
When Spock peers into the joint space of their connection, he finds a crystalline memory of Jim watching him amid a blooming springtime evening on Chi Delta and its endless fields of starlit flowers, intoxicated and filled with a nebulous adoration that straddles the border between friends and lovers. It is a perfect jewel of a memory that Jim treasures beyond aught else. Three months into their mission, Jim looked at Spock, saw the stars in his hair and felt a shared sense of wonder.  
  
He finds his own self full of a new understanding of the vicious and consuming desire that overtakes the essence of Vulcan civility every seven years, of how one could lose themselves so completely in another. Jim’s body is wracked with tremors of pleasure, even as they close every small gap between them. Spock can feel each thrust, and knows Jim experiences the reflection of Spock’s pleasure, both of them taking and giving, one wound so tightly into the other that Spock has difficulty discerning his own desires.  
  
They roll together, Jim straddling him, hands braced on the headboard above Spock. Spock, dizzy with the dual sensation, thrusts up to meet Jim, gripping him hard by the hips while Jim works in a slowly rising frenzy. Spock fists his hand in Jim’s hair and surges up to meet him, pulling Jim’s head back, and sucks a necklace of red marks into the soft skin of his throat.  
  
At the edge of it all, Jim is audacious, reaching for Spock with his thoughts, mind-blind without Spock’s guidance but still striving to understand. His color and chaos drive an overflowing fervor into Spock, watery alien trees blooming in a vast desert landscape, his memories of Vulcan-that-was clashing with the pelagic forests that spring up below Jim’s waves.  
  
Breath stuttering, Jim gives a final cry and releases, one hand on his phallus. The ejaculate leaks through his fingers, wonderfully musky, and drips onto Spock’s belly. Spock tumbles after, every limb suffused with delight and the bell-toned elation of their coupling as he buries himself to the root in Jim and releases.  
  
It subsides all too quickly. Jim slumps, skin tacky with drying sweat and semen, exhaustion creeping back into his thoughts.  
  
Briefly concerned, Spock places a hand on Jim’s forehead, unable to discern if his skin is hot from simple exertion or feverish exhaustion. Jim bats his hand away half-heartedly and collapses against Spock’s chest with a satisfied sound. The mess between them is unpleasant, but not so much that Spock would willingly deny Jim contact.  
  
“You’re amazing,” Jim declares muzzily, tactile and languid from the intensity of his orgasm. The meld has dialed down in intensity, no longer an overwhelming focus for either of them, but Spock has a sense of Jim’s thoughts running like a river through the back of his mind.  
  
For a moment, Jim’s thoughts are so clear that he fears he has tread too deeply, an accidental intrusion into the self but reels the thought back before it can gain traction. Spock had once thought of attaining such equilibrium with Nyota, had once had a neat, ordered plan for his life, but his decisions have led him to crossroads again and again. His few moments of impulsiveness have driven the shape of his life.  
  
Jim lifts his head, looking at Spock curiously. His gaze is slightly unfocused, and Spock can feel him looking inward, sifting through the shared space to make sense of their intertwined thoughts. “Would sharing that much be so bad?”  
  
Spock's skin heats, feeling a renewed need to touch Jim. Jim's amusement is clear and bright. He replies, “Negative. However, I believe that even Humans might call that 'moving too fast’.”  
  
“Most Humans would call _this_ moving too fast,” Jim says, but he’s smiling, easy and uninhibited. A lazy forest blooms in their minds, fields of flowers, endless summer, neon starfish on a desert floor the color of the night sky, Spock’s regard like nurturing rain. “Isn’t that something you share with --” he makes a vague gesture, sheepish. “I honestly don’t know all that much about Vulcan xenoculture.”  
  
Spock feels unaccountably warm. His parasympathetic nervous system betrays him, heart speeding at the implication. Jim raises both eyebrows and cannot conceal his satisfaction from Spock.  
  
“It can be somewhat more intimate,” Spock says. He cannot share his understanding of the thousands of years of cultural significance with Jim, but he can expose the raw edge of his own desire to be made whole, to be tied to a mind that balances and nurtures his own.  
  
“Is that why you and Nyota never -- what was it?” Jim asks, but casts about in his mind for the answer.  
  
Spock shows it to him, unfurling it in the way Spock himself was taught, Vulcan mind to Vulcan mind. Reverence, balance, companionship, even across the stars. There's an underlying current of satisfaction as Jim’s mind coils around the idea that Spock refuses to directly acknowledge, because to do so would be rude; Jim’s thoughts are not unkind. He respects what Spock and Nyota tried to build, but he makes his preference clear.  
  
Jim’s mind glitters beneath his, tantalizing.  
  
Spock bowls him off gently, tumbling Jim into the blankets, and kneels over him. Jim grins up at him, clearly enjoying Spock’s instinctual desire to assert some amount of dominance. There is no cause for shame here, and Spock has been worn thin by his own expectations of what it means to be Vulcan. This is part of him, too, these needs, this physicality; he will strike a balance.  
  
Spock asserts, “The practice of bonding is almost exclusively between mates in modern Vulcan society, but historical accounts provide many reasons for the act.”  
  
_Mates_. He does not have to explain that marriage is a more Human convention, applied to a Vulcan tradition the way Humans fumble through the universe -- well-intentioned, but with imperfect understanding. Jim is his, now, and he has a desire to take, to claim. It clutches at him from the base of his brain, a low, urgent drive that grinds down his self-control.  
  
“Ah, _well_ , far be it from me to question ancient Vulcan culture,” Jim says, mouth slanted into a rakish, familiar smile. He reaches for Spock; he desires to be taken. “We should probably figure a few other things out, first, though.”  
  
Spock touches Jim’s cheek, and Jim turns his face into Spock’s palm, nuzzling the heel of Spock’s hand. He hooks his arm around Spock’s neck and reels him in for a kiss that leaves Spock eager to sink into Jim again. Arousal meanders easily across the bridge between them, back and forth, through lazy star fields, through the nebula-filled lagoons of Jim’s thoughts.  
  
Jim pushes at his shoulder, laughing, but his leg is hooked over Spock’s hip and he looks mischievous. “Bones said you weren't supposed to be overexerting me.”  
  
Spock bites at the rounded shell of Jim’s ear, inciting more laughter. “How fortunate for you that I am not in the habit of disobeying medical orders.”  
  
“I thought Vulcans didn't lie,” Jim says, and fishes for Spock’s hand. Spock allows himself to be guided to the half-hard length of Jim, and obediently wraps his fingers around the tumescent length of him, pumping his hand slowly. “Or are you just confessing you’ll make an exception for me?”  
  
“I am willing to perform the labor.” Provoked by the soft sounds issuing from Jim’s mouth, Spock exhales against Jim’s skin. “The Vulcan refractory period can be shortened voluntarily by practice of biomechanical control.”  
  
Jim groans, going pink when Spock lifts him gently and rocks his own member against the soft skin of his inner thigh, frotting between the sensitive, lubricated join of his legs. “If you don't put your cock in me again, right now, I think I'm going to die.”  
  
“Hyperbole will not hasten my acquiescence,” Spock says, taking pleasure in making Jim wait as he reapplies the lubricant. When he angles himself against Jim’s opening, he finds himself driven by their conjoined desire. He delves his tongue into the dip of Jim’s throat, and bites at the exposed knob of his shoulder.  
  
“Liar,” Jim whines, when Spock sinks into the decadently wet grip of Jim’s body. “ _Oh._ You’re insatiable. I can feel you.”  
  
“Our desires are merely compatible,” Spock says mildly. He probes around Jim’s stretched entrance with a finger, less distracted by the first urgency of attaining orgasm and the overwhelming newness of Jim’s mind. The release has returned some measure of his control to him, but he leaves himself open to the dark heat between them.  
  
Jim jerks, surprised, when Spock pushes a lubricated finger into his body alongside his phallus. Spock can feel how it stretches Jim, how Jim desires to have his body filled, how he has thought of Spock before, of Vulcan fingers and tongue taking him apart.  
  
Jim pants, red-cheeked, “Usually you don't get to find out about each other's dirty secrets all at once like this.”  
  
“I would offer apologies, but I do not wish to be insincere,” Spock says, raising both eyebrows at Jim.  
  
Startled laughter bursts from Jim, unbidden, and Spock’s mouth curls at the corner, pleased. He often does not grasp the fundamental oddities of Human humor, fraught with opaque cultural subtleties, but the response is deeply gratifying, even as Jim’s vocal joy dissolves into a rumbling groan.  
  
Spock unfolds the tableau of his own desire in return, removing his digit and thrusting deeper to replace the lost sensation. He wants to fill Jim up with his semen, to press into Jim’s giving body, to slide into Jim’s mouth until Jim is swallowing around him. He wants to mark Jim with his scent, erase every touch of Khan’s ugly existence and replace it with memories of skin on skin.  
  
Spock wants to scrub away the sterile memory of Starfleet Medical and Jim lying so still in the biobed with the flushed, squirming decadence of Jim’s body beneath his. Jim takes everything that Spock can give, the pleasant and the painful, and boldly reaches for more.  
  
He rocks slowly, patiently, drawing himself over Jim’s prostate with steady, measured thrusts. Jim watches him with wide, liquid eyes, jaw lax, a flush building on his golden chest. The whole world narrows back to the two of them, to the heat and selfish need trapped beneath Spock’s skin.  
  
Spock’s own pleasure is nearly untenable, building in him from the clusters of psi-receptors in his head and spine and hands.  
  
When they reach orgasm together a second time, it overtakes them both swiftly. Spock’s vision goes momentarily dark. When the sensation begins to subside, Spock finds his control of his higher functions compromised.  
  
He is unsure of the cause, but his breathing comes in gasping, desperate lungfuls, and he realizes he is unable to stop the sudden surge of emotion bubbling up from below his conscious thoughts. It seems an endless font, and Spock lacks the knowledge and self-control to cap the wellspring.  
  
Jim is there, navigating the emotion with startling ease, though Jim’s face is damp with tears from a grief he does not own. He cradles Spock’s face in his hands, making soothing noises, and carries the burden of everything gone too long unaddressed.  
  
“Okay, it’s okay. We made it,” Jim whispers, pulling Spock tightly against his body. “I'm not going to leave you.”  
  
Vulcans were not meant to exist alone, bondless and without the telepathic kinship ties that held together communities even pre-Reformation. Even the Golic priests of Vulcan-that-was, practitioners of _Kolinahr,_ meditated together, the pure essence of themselves mingling. There is often a measure of peace in solitude, and Spock has long isolated himself in an effort to mold himself into something more quintessentially Vulcan -- but his people have always drawn their strength from their numbers.  
  
They are _so few_ , now.  
  
“ _Jim_ ,” Spock says, voice hoarse. His hands flutter uselessly about Jim’s shoulders, his mind and body both wrung out.  
  
The times he has wept, silent and tormented by shame at his inability to modulate his emotional response, are innumerable. Now, though, he holds on to the emotion, that joy, and it feels as if he’s made of a thousand threads, and Jim snared up in it all.  
  
Spock has long believed loss of control to be unacceptable, but Jim anchors him, steadies him. There is a long-raging storm in his mind, and Jim allows it to blow itself out.  
  
“Everything will be fine,” Jim promises, and lowers Spock to the pillows, still tangled together. “I’m here.”

 

* * *

 

Jim discovers that he is far better equipped to handle a Vulcan in the throes of emotional turmoil than whatever his own issues are. Grief is an old friend, and if the nights up with his mother taught him anything, it's that most people just need a place to lean.  
  
“Let me help you,” Jim murmurs into the clean, soft crown of Spock’s hair. “Stay here, I’m going to clean us up.”  
  
The soft fuzz of pleasure is muted, but his limbs are still heavy from his orgasm -- from _their_ orgasm -- and when he works his way carefully to the bathroom, he has to pause to lean heavily on the wall, winded.  
  
He doesn't linger long, scrubbing himself over the sink and wetting a cloth for Spock, propelled to haste by concern.  
  
Spock’s hand is fisted in the blanket when Jim returns, his inner eyelids shuttered against the daylight, mouth a hard line and face stony. It wrenches something in Jim, who had the last taste of Spock’s roiling emotions before the mind meld was abruptly severed.  
  
He sits next to Spock and runs the damp cloth over Spock’s skin. There are little red marks where Jim’s fingers gripped, his pale skin tacky with semen and Jim’s sweat. He tidies Spock up, slow and soothing, until Spock's little gasping breaths even out.  
  
When Jim bends to kiss Spock’s sternum, his eyelids flutter, and Spock stares up at Jim, eyes big and dark and inscrutable.  
  
“Hey,” Jim says, fond. It’s surprising how quickly he’s surrendered to this; if the universe ever had a thing like destiny, Captain Kirk and Commander Spock would be the comprehensive definition. Mostly because Jim thinks that Spock could _be_ the whole universe.  
  
Spock curls a hand up into Jim’s hair, mouth parted, sinking his fingers into the ruffled mess of it.  
  
Jim wants to kiss him for that, for inspiring that swell of warmth that's been intermittently building in his chest and belly, so he does. Spock runs his thumbs over Jim’s cheeks, cradling his face, swallowing his breath, tongue tantalizingly raspy.  
  
Spock finally says, voice hoarse, “There is a tradition of bathing one’s mate after enduring _pon farr._ ”  
  
The term has a certain gravitas, but Jim doesn't recognize it, his grasp of Vulcan still patchy at best. Jim sets Spock's hair aright with two fingers. He dumps the cloth onto the floor and smiles down at Spock. They can clean up later. “Is that what all that fuss was?”  
  
Jim knows now that he didn't imagine it the first time, and it's just as surprising the second time around when Spock’s mouth curves up at one corner. “It is not a thing spoken of, Jim.”  
  
“Ah, steeped in ancient Vulcan mysticism?” Jim says, light, though there is a tremor in his voice. He runs a hand up Spock’s bare belly, but Spock catches it and admires Jim’s fingers like they’re a specimen to be studied. Maybe he is, Jim thinks, recalling the way Spock pinned him down, the way he’d felt spread open and absorbed.  
  
“No. Simply a conversation best left until a future date,” Spock says. He rolls up on one arm and touches Jim’s face. There's a softness about his expression, a steadiness that always comes after a storm. “I have always been taught to fear losing myself.”  
  
Jim wants to say, _there's no reason_ , or anything else equally comforting, but he knows how strong the undertow of Spock’s emotional response can be. There’s something consuming in the Vulcan experience that Jim didn't credit before he was exposed to it. Didn't understand all the passion buttoned up and smoothed out, neat and controlled.  
  
There are no platitudes for him to offer. He thinks he can understand the fringes of the thing that has had Spock in its grasp. That terror, that loss, that gut-wrenching, awful feeling in those few seconds that he didn’t know if Spock had been swallowed up because Jim broke the rules again.  
  
“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Jim says, trying to feel as brave as he wants to be for Spock, as brave as everyone’s been for him. He’ll figure this out. There’s always a way to win.  
  
“You must not succumb to fear,” Spock says, into his skin. Jim remembers the way Spock’s mind felt, before the dissolution, before the collapse. Like a desert, deadly and beautiful, life springing up where none ought to grow.  
  
“Yeah,” Jim says, “yeah, I won’t. Not with you here. We can do anything together. You, and me, and the _Enterprise_.”  
  
Spock tips his head up, eyes bright, warm, breaking every rule. “As you say, Captain.”


End file.
